fist fights and study guides
by Vividus
Summary: Clint Barton makes friends, loses friends, drinks a lot of instant coffee, and tries to survive his sophomore year of college while his suite-mates wage a war with the bigots the floor below. (Same verse as Dance History 10.)
1. Chapter 1

This is for one of my dearest friends, Whispy, who pushed me to actually work on this instead of crying over the idea. This fic takes place in the same verse as Dance History 10, but it doesn't follow the most clear and linear format.

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><p>One of the first times everyone gets together, besides the introductory floor meeting, is for floor Cards Against Humanity.<p>

"There's nothing like being as horrible as possible, in front of other people," Sam tells them. Pepper just says it's a "good relationship-building activity," but Clint can't really tell if she's being serious or not. He's not sure if he wants to go at first, at least until Sam reminds him that it's a good way to tell who to avoid, based on their reactions.

Since they all live in the dorms, there's no alcohol involved, either. Bucky makes disappointed noises when Sam stresses that point, until Sam tells him that there will be lots of coffee and sweets to make up for it - what's a little floor party without people hyped up on caffeine and sugar, after all? It's legal, and none of them will get in trouble, Pepper adds, with a stern look at Tony. He's older than everyone, on account of years of traveling, but the allure of alcohol hasn't rubbed off yet, and everyone knows it. Not that he usually gets raging drunk, no, but Clint's definitely seen it happen more than once.

It wouldn't be that concerning if it wasn't still the first quarter. But it is, so Pepper, at least, is worried. No one else seems to care as much, Clint notices, but then again, Pepper and Tony seem to have some strange sort of relationship. They're very close, and if not for the way that Pepper seems to really value Tony (what for, Clint can't say, and no one else can either), it would seem like a friendly teacher-student relationship. Pepper seems to help Tony a lot more than he helps her, especially with his whines and demands for coddling. She rarely gives in to him, of course, but that doesn't stop him. She's so often exasperated with him, it doesn't really seem like their friendship is ideal, or even a good one. But there has to be something that binds them together, Clint tells Nat when she wonders aloud how Tony and Pepper are even friends, because you don't just become friends with someone who offers you nothing.

It sounds crude, and Clint feels horrible the moment he says it. He doesn't want Natasha to think that he expects or wants anything from her other than friendship, and he knows that he's messed up the moment she flinches away from him. And, well, fuck, Clint thinks. Luckily, they're early for tonight's activity and no one is in the lounge to notice his misstep.

"I didn't… Natasha, I don't mean it like that, I swear!" She won't look at him still, but he wouldn't look at himself either if he was her.

"I mean… Friendships work like this. You give someone your time and, and, and… fuck. and your presence, that's it. And your words and your feelings, and they give you theirs in return. Like, you can't be friends with someone when they don't…. when they don't want to help you, too. Friends have to help each other, and be there for each other. It can't be one friend always being there for the other, y'know? It's a two-way street."

He hopes that his little speech makes sense, and he opens his eyes to find her back ramrod-straight while she looks at him strangely. She's silent for a bit longer, and he can hear his heart pounding wildly - he just wants to know that things are going to stay okay for them - and then she swallows loudly.

"I don't know. But thank you for explaining." And it's unbelievably cliche but Clint swears that his heart breaks. They're not the best of friends because it's hard to make nice with strangers you've only see in passing for two weeks, but Clint knows that he wants her to be his. Friend, that way that Phil is probably his friend now, especially after they bonded over watching crappy kids cartoons like Yu-Gi-Oh and Digimon (although Phil will never admit it, since it'll ruin his image of a serious student), and the way Tony and Rhodey are friends. The way Steve and Bucky will go to the end of the line for each other, Clint wants a friendship like that. Even now, just a weeks in, he's pretty sure that Natasha is one of his closest friends. They see each other often, they hang out both in and out of class, and even though they don't really know that much about each other (it's only been two weeks, after all), Clint wants to be really good friends with her.

It's a bit too early to be thinking about friends like that, but Clint hadn't made many friends his freshman year. He had been too aloof, too afraid to have people hurt him again, and just too uncomfortable with school to put any effort into friendships. This year, things will be different.

At least, he'd like for things to be different. In reality, though, there's a shitton of work to be done before he can really say he likes anyone on this floor, other than Nat and Phil. Steve's a good guy, sure, and he respects Bucky too, but there's… it's just tense. Everyone's personalities are clashing as they try to catch up with the quarter system and mesh with their roommates and floormates.

And then there's those guys from the other floor, who they're supposed to make nice with. Sam and Pepper had made this activity night open to everyone, posting it in the building's facebook group and plastering flyers on everyone's floor. So of course, who else would show up but the douchebags from the floor below.

As the room begins to fill with more and more people, it's clear that just about no one gets along. Tony and Steve sort of glare at each other, or at least avoid each other's eyes, while Maria zeros in on a kid from the other floor, Brock Rumlow, whose shirt has some kind of pro-life saying on looks pissed, and she's not the only one angry. Another guy from the other floor - and it's kind of weird, that they're all white guys - alternates between eyeing Sam distastefully and glaring at Bucky's rainbow colored t-shirt.

When there's about 15 people in the room from each floor, Pepper starts discussing the rules, and how they're going to break it down. There'll be five groups, she says, of six people each. In order to let people to make new friends and get out of their comfort zones, they'll decide groups by counting off from one to six, and then finding the people with the same numbers. Clint, a 5, ends up with Sam, Loki, and Sharon from his floor, and then some guys from the other floor who don't even offer their names.

So of course, the game doesn't get off to the best start. First, Sam, as Card Czar, chooses "The Violation of Our Basic Human Rights" as the best answer for "War! What is it Good For?" The other-floor strangers are not impressed, or amused. Instead, they give him a huge stink face, and one of them even mumbles something about Sam having "no understanding of humans and international politics." As much as Sam and Sharon try to foster a conversation, since Clint and especially Loki don't seem that good at keeping up small talk, the other two don't really seem to care for making new friends. Mostly, they whisper with each other, moving their lips too quickly for Clint to lip-read. But with the way one of them keeps glancing with obvious disdain at his hearing aids, Clint's pretty sure he doesn't really need to know. After all, if they're that douchey then it's not worth the effort.

The tension just gets worse and worse, as the other-floor people keep getting upset basically every time societal conventions get challenged. They use their cards to make racist or sexist jokes, which Clint can tell makes Sam and Sharon uneasy. Of course, this makes them enjoy it even more.

During one of his turns as Card Czar, Clint looks around the room to see how the other games are going. Tony and Natasha are grouped with three guys from the other floor, and both of them look almost comically pissed off. Thor, Steve, and Pepper are all carefully losing their poker faces as the guys they're playing with laugh their asses off. Honestly, it doesn't look like anyone's having any fun. And it's only about 20 minutes into the activity.

Admittedly, not all of the guys from the other floor look that happy. Rumlow looks like he's getting a solid talking-to from Maria and…. Loki? Huh, that doesn't seem like Loki. Admittedly, Clint doesn't really know Loki all that well, but he hasn't even tried to be very friendly so much as he's snarked everyone he's come across. And not even in a friendly, funny way, but more a jerkface way. Actually, Clint would have figured he would get along pretty well with these guys, knowing what he does now of how much everyone seems to hate them.

But you can't be right all the time, he guesses. He turns back to his game, determined to make sure that none of the bigots will win.

Eventually Sam wins, making all the HYDRA guys (which is not even a shitty name Clint gives them, but something they sort of mumble about, and Clint wouldn't know this if not for Sam carefully mouthing it over to him) really annoyed. Or angry, maybe even a mix of the two.

The next game is better, in Clint's opinion, since he gets to play with Tony Stark (who, even though it's early in the quarter, has a notoriously dirty sense of humor that makes this game fun) and Peter Quill, a cheerful student from the eighth floor with what Cint thinks is possibly the silliest sense of humor in the building. Combined, they have the most sexual and nonsensical responses you can possibly get, and even one of the HYDRA guys seems to think it's funny, although the other one - Clint can't remember his name, but it's definitely something foreign, if his accent is anything to go by - doesn't look amused. Maybe, Clint will tell Phil later, none of these guys have a sense of humor.

In the game closest to him, Natasha is sitting with Bucky and Pepper, all of them with strange facial expressions. Brock Rumlow, he thinks it is, keeps gesturing to Bucky's prosthetic arm and contorting his face, which his friend seems to think is hilarious. Nat, Bucky, and Pepper, not so much. To be honest, they look like they either want to run away, or jump him.

Actually, the more Clint looks around, the more he notices how angry his floormates look. Even Jane Foster, a contender for "nicest person ever," looks super grossed out. A number of them have disappeared, too, ostensibly for the bathroom, but Clint suspects they've run off to hide in their rooms. Sam and Pepper, unfortunately, have to stay, as the resident RAs and the coordinators of the event.

Bucky catches his eye and keeps looking toward the door, indicating that they should book it. Clint, for his part, makes a guilty face as he stares at Sam, hoping that Bucky will get the message. It'll look badly on their RAs if everyone just decides to jump ship. But Bucky, evidently, doesn't give any fucks about it. He smoothly excuses himself from his game with a loud yawn and almost shouts about how he has a calc test in the morning, and then leaves to go "study before bedtime."

Steve glares at him, instantly seeing through his lie. Bucky isn't phased on bit, which Clint admires. (When Steve had glared at Phil in the morning, mostly because Phil had beat him to some dining hall coffee, Phil had looked more cowed that ever. That is to say, he look marginally ashamed and kind of flustered.)

Bucky, on the other hand, sort of rolls his eyes, and then speaks in an even louder voice. "Steve, Clint, do you think you could help me out? I'm having some trouble visualizing how to do washer method."

Steve, who's an art and political science double major, if Clint remembers correctly, looks a bit confused. But Clint knows exactly what he's talking about. He nods, and gets up with a pseudo-apologetic face towards the other players. Tony frowns the shit out of him (he looks pretty upset about getting abandoned, but so would Clint if he was in his shoes), but he really can't be bothered to care. Steve catches on a second later, and gets up, too. Together, the three of them head down the hallway and escape into their rooms.


	2. Chapter 2

Somehow, Clint gets roped into archery club. Well, not so much "roped into" as it is, convincing from Phil and Natasha. Natasha, for all her quiet seriousness and independence, is fiercely assertive when it comes to her friends' wellbeing. At least, that's what Maria tells him when they talking while going down the stairs (waiting for the elevator, Clint's realized, takes way too long, and he likes the exercise anyways). But before the activities' fair she'd almost quizzed him on all his interests, before telling him, "Unfortunately, there isn't a dog lovers' club for you. But I think there's something that'll fit."

She's right, of course. She leads him straight to the archery club booth, where he signs up and chats with the guys running it whose names he doesn't catch, but they seem really cool. It seems pretty fun and laid-back, like they just set up in the gym's archery range (what kind of school has a fucking archery range, Clint thinks, but he accepts it) every week or every other week, whichever one works out better, and shoot. Fun, plain and simple. It sounds like good stress relief, and he means it.

After that, Natasha leads him out of the activities fair right away, and they hang out in semi-silence as he recovers from the huge masses of people that crowded around the quad. He notices that she doesn't have any fliers, though, like she hasn't looked at any clubs. And come to think of it, she probably hasn't - she's been with him the whole time, so it's kind of weird. She's not looking at him, though, so he isn't sure if she wants to talk about it. He takes the super subtle route of staring at her, instead.

Eventually, she glances at him and quirks an eyebrow, like she's asking him, "What do you want?"

He shrugs. Now or never. "Did you want to join any clubs? You didn't stop at any of the booths."

"I stopped at the archery booth."

He shakes his head, because that doesn't count. "You didn't take a flier, or put down your e-mail."

She looks him in the eye then, very seriously. Sort of like she's trying to figure out if she can trust him or not. She looks away after maybe a long thirty seconds, and finally says, "I don't think I'm ready to be around that many new people, right now."

He doesn't know what to say, so he gently bumps her shoulder with his sympathetically. Or, he hopes it comes off as sympathetic. From the way she smiles back at him, it seems like it does. And they sit in silence. And sit in silence. And sit in silence.

But it's comfortable. Comforting. And friendly.


	3. Chapter 3

The first time Clint meets Nick Fury, one of the student directors of resident life in the SHIELD Tower dorms, he's a little terrified. It's not his fault.

Phil is the one who introduces him, roping him into a "Meet and Greet" event during the first week. It's a way to, well, meet the university faculty who live in the building (why anyone would want to live at school forever, Clint doesn't know) and the students who work for the dorms. Phil gets Clint to come by telling him he doesn't want to go alone, and Clint is absolutely sure that he's lying, except he feels like a dick being distrustful, so he goes, and he mingles. Sort of.

Mostly, he stands off to the side of the room and watches people. Introductions aren't his strong suit, not really - people speaking too quietly and too quickly for him to pick up on it sometimes, and it's impolite to ask them to repeat their names. Really, it isn't his favorite place to be, but he's there for moral support. At the very least, Phil will know that he isn't the most embarrassing person at the event.

Phil's not the most talkative or bouncy of people, but he's moving around between all the different people rather comfortably. Not that he doesn't notice what Clint's been doing, he knows exactly where he is, but he knows better than to force Clint too much out of his comfort zone. At the very least, though, Phil decides that Clint should meet at least one person. So he picks the scariest person in the room, of course.

Nick Fury is tall, he has an imposing eye-patch, and he's a military veteran who's finishing up his last year as a political science and history double major. He also wears a giant black trench coat all the time that fucking billows behind him when he walks, and he can probably break Clint in half, so yeah, he's scary. It takes him a while to warm up to him, and then they get along. It's not very easy, and it's tense at times (Clint's tendency of flicking paper balls at people has annoyed some of his floormates, the ones who end up as collateral damage when his friends duck out of the way, who of course complain to Fury), especially when Clint refuses to obey rules. But overall, it's not as bad as it could be.

Clint's not 100% sure, but he kind of knows that Fury puts on a really strict front. Part of the reason why Fury is so scary, besides being so tall and eye-patched, is how he handles dorm rules violations. He pulls himself up to his full height and glares the fuck out of you, and you can just tell where all the expletives are supposed to be when he's yelling at you. Not that it happened to him personally, Clint tells Phil, but he watched Fury tear Tony a new one for building some physics thing in his room and blasting AC/DC at 3 in the morning on a weekday, when Quiet Hours start at 10PM.

Phil, being Phil, doesn't change his facial expression at all, except for a tiny crack of a smile. Clint swears that he probably would have rolled his eyes, though, or maybe smirked if he wanted to. Instead, he gets a "Fury's perfectly within his rights to document Tony for violating the rules."

But then again, Phil and Fury get along almost ridiculously well. Phil, Clint has learned, likes to at least appear simple and bland, and he's nothing if not professional. That isn't to say that he's conservative or inflexible, far from it. Phil can be super innovative, he probably is all the time, but he prefers for people to underestimate him. Fury, Clint would guess, understands that, but in a different way. Phil pushes people's buttons by being so to-the-line, he can get a good measure of what they like, and once he knows what he needs he starts improvising. Fury does the same thing (otherwise Tony Stark would have about 50 more disciplinary meetings with the Council, the actual directors of the dorms). Not to mention, they have the same majors, so Phil goes to Fury for advice, although he's said it's not a one-way channel. Clint doesn't know what exactly Phil helps Fury with, but he trusts his word.

Natasha, too, gets along with Fury almost too well. From the moment Clint introduced the two (during a pretty awkward "waiting for the elevator" period), she's thought that he's adorable. She spends a lot of time in Fury's office, chatting with him about the effect of Cold War politics on modern-day policies, and heckling him to work on getting more healthy food options in the cafeteria. Somehow, it works (the salad bar almost doubles in size). She also drags Clint down to the office with her, plopping next to him on Nick's super comfy couch to do her homework in relative calm and comfort. It's weird, Clint thinks, especially considering how little Natasha likes being around people. But she seems comfortable with him.

They're not dating or anything ("yet," Sam says, as Tony waggles his eyebrows with an exaggeratedly creepy grin) but she seems alright with quick hugs sometimes, if they're not surprise attack hugs, which they're not even close enough for. In front of Fury, though, she seems almost like she's at home. And as the student life director, Nick had to make the "come to my office anytime for anything, I'll even read your papers for you" speech, and Natasha holds him to it. It helps that Natasha's such a good writer, so Fury barely even marks her paper. But he doesn't let her off easy, either. He challenges her ideas, argues with her over sentence length, and Natasha grows more comfortable and confident in her own skin.

Seeing her content makes Clint smile. He remembers meeting her, the impossibly pretty girl with the dangerous aura, like someone who you shouldn't push too far. She wanted everything to be too perfect, impossibly so, and she'd punished herself for her perceived misgivings. Only a week or two ago, she had been too serious. Not that she was giant goofball now. She definitely doesn't crack jokes 24/7, or poke fun at everyone around her. No, Clint thinks, her actions, her demeanor aren't so different from before. But she's less tense, now, she doesn't freeze up when people look at her for a just a bit longer than she likes. She takes dance classes again, slowly immersing herself in an old pastime that used to make her happy. The look on her face when she gets back from lessons makes the worry and phone-clutching Clint does worth it. Even as Bucky laughs at him (again, but Bucky always laughs at him over his behaviors concerning Natasha), he wouldn't change it for the world. Natasha is so much healthier than before, so much more comfortable with people than she used to be.

She hugs her friends, Maria and Pepper and Clint and Steve, even. She's not physically clingy, she doesn't crave touch, but she seems to love hugs. Hugs, she tells him, are something she never got while a student at Vaganova, because she never really bonded with any of her peers. But she smiles more readily now, tiny little smirks that Stark says "don't count" as real smiles. Natasha would deck him for saying that, if it wasn't for the nervous laughs he gives off whenever he tries to make a joke.

Tony Stark, Clint's learned, is not as much of a douche as he thought. Sure, he can be thoughtless and selfish, but he's there for his friends when they need him. If he counts you as a friend, that is, and Tony's quick to judge and cast off people who he thinks have wronged him. He has this annoying tendency of thinking that everything can be bought with money, but he's only Tony fucking Stark, after all. Rich as fucking Croesus, so he's mostly only ever had people cater to his every whim, rather than challenge and teach him about proper behavior.

It's no wonder that Fury can't stand him. While Clint often toes the line when it comes to "accidentally" breaking the rules, and outright challenging them, Tony really doesn't give a fuck. He chafes at the idea of listening to other people, and talks constantly about how he doesn't really need to go to school. "I'm a genius, remember that," he'll tell everyone. It's fucking annoying, and Clint isn't sure how Rhodey puts up with him. Loki sort of jokes that Rhodey's probably his keeper and throws a nasty look at Thor that everyone notices, because Loki doesn't even try to be subtle. But it's a lot more than that. There's no fucking way Rhodey would hang out with Tony if he just babysat him all day. Rhodey's a good guy, but he's smart enough to not subject himself to some weird kind of emotionally manipulative relationship. Not to mention those kinds of friendship dynamics, as Bucky so eloquently put it, are "fucked up."

Clint can't say he understands them at all, but it's not even his place. As long as nothing weird is going on - no fighting, no bruises, no cuts - platonic or romantic, he really doesn't give a fuck. But once someone gets hurt, Clint's not going to just stand by. He's not going to watch that happen again.

Of course, that's exactly what gets him into trouble.


	4. Chapter 4

Sam and Pepper are actually really good at organizing floor events. If you ignore the debacle of Cards Against Humanity with HYDRA, that is, but their movie nights tend to be pretty solid. The next event, which Sam first mentions at a floor meeting, is even better than the last, since it's only open to the floor. And it doesn't get resolved in one night, either, because (as Sam announces rather grandly) they're playing Assassins.

Clint hasn't played Assassins before, but luckily Sam is quick to explain when a few other people give him confused looks, too.

"Essentially," Sam says, "everyone has a target. Your goal is to mark your target with a marker on their arm, meaning that you've assassinated them. Once you've done that, their target becomes your next target, and it goes on until there's one person left, and everyone else has been 'assassinated.' Some places are off-limits, so your rooms, bathrooms, and the elevator. Anywhere else on the floor is fair game."

Clint, along with a bunch of other people, sign up for it. It seems really interesting, even though Clint isn't sure he'll even be able to recognize his target (there are a lot of people on the floor). But as Pepper had said, it's a good way to get to know the people around you. Probably.

Phil bows out gracefully, saying that he's always in their room, so it wouldn't work for his assassin. Clint rolls his eyes at him, but then his attention is directed in a whole 'nother direction when Loki laughs loudly.

"You're going to play? You can't even see," he sneers at Matt Murdock, a blind political science major who asked Natasha to put his name down. Thor visibly flinches as everyone turns to stare, but Loki doesn't seem bothered. If anything, he seems to relish the attention.

In response, Matt flips him the bird.

Loki rolls his eyes, but he doesn't say anything else. He does, however, sign himself up for Assassins.

Once everyone who wants to play has signed up - basically everyone except for Phil and Bruce, who explains that he gets really violent when surprised and he doesn't want to hurt his assassin - Sam shoos everyone off with the promise of e-mailing everyone their targets, and a reminder to keep a marker with them at all times.

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><p>The next morning, a poster with all the players' names is posted next to the elevator, at the top of the event board. No one's name is crossed out, not yet. But by the time Clint comes back from Professor Xavier's office hours (biology sucks ass, and who the fuck sets office hours at 9AM anyways?), Pepper's name has been crossed off.<p>

Pepper's not really unaware of her surroundings or anything, or at least Clint doesn't get that vibe from her, so he's a little surprised that she's the first one off the list. If anything, he would have guessed Tony, whose loudness kind of just makes him an easy target.

As they walk to Erskine Hall for their history lecture with Professor Lehnsherr, Maria tells him what happened. Sort of unsurprisingly, Tony was Pepper's assassin, and she hadn't tried to fight him so much as she let him mark her.

Sounds like Pepper, Clint thinks. She doesn't fight, not physically, and she makes decisions based on how things will affect other people. They continue to make small talk, which Clint can proudly say he does not fuck up this time, until they get to class and absolutely have to be silent.

(Professor Lehnsherr is strict as fuck about everything - cell phones, talking, food, even laptops. This is definitely Clint's first class where no electronics are allowed.)

When they get out of class finally (sort of unsurprisingly, Prof. Lehnsherr goes over by at least five minutes every lecture, as if two-hour lectures without a bathroom break still isn't enough time) and make it back up the hill to the dorms, two more names are crossed off - Tony and Thor.

Since it's been half a day, and three people are already out, Clint gets a little paranoid when he's not in his room, or when he gets off the elevator. He doesn't know who his assassin is (part of the fun, after all), but he definitely keeps his eye out for his own target, Loki.

Only, Loki is a slippery piece of shit. He rarely leaves his room, slips out to class at weird times, and is generally just hard to get. Clint starts to feel like he should just hang out in the hallway and wait for Loki. And he probably would if he didn't have his own assassin to worry about. Not to mention, that looks a little bit pathetic, and it's too early in the year to look a complete loser.

Actually, Matt is the reason he gets Loki. Well, Matt and some girl he'd been talking to as he got off the elevator (Clint finds out way later, her name is Elektra and she's a political science major). They all finish Wednesdays with the same class (Professor Xavier's biology lecture), so they walk back together and complain about, well, biology. So while Elektra was leading Matt off the elevator, Loki had been crossing by them to get to the lounge.

Clint, with a quickness that still surprises him, sort of "ninja-ed out of elevator," as Tony describes it, and marks Loki on the arm. Unsurprisingly, Loki is not amused. He doesn't go on a tirade, but he does sort of huff angrily and reluctantly cross his name off the poster. He doesn't lose gracefully, but he doesn't act like a kindergartener throwing a tantrum, either. It weirds Clint out a lot. Nothing he does seems really genuine, except for all the arguments he gets into - those seem pretty legit, but only because he seems really relish pissing people off. Clint does his best to avoid talking to him, which both is and isn't hard. Loki doesn't seem to care of disabled people, like at all, and acts as if Clint (and Bucky, and Matt) are beneath him. But he also sees them like his own personal jesters or something, and loves to insult the fuck out of them.

Sam and Pepper have been breaking up a lot of fights for the past few weeks, to say the least.

By the beginning of the next week, almost everyone playing Assassins has been killed off. Steve is the next to go, after Tony and Loki, after Sam surprises him in the middle of the afternoon, right when he gets off the elevator. Rhodey and Bucky follow, with Rhodey getting Bucky after a particularly violent looking battle to the death. It would have been a good victory, except for Clint almost literally swooping in and marking the crap out of Rhodey.

Maria is out next, after Matt recruits his roommate Foggy in helping him recognize his target (more like, threatens to throw out all of Foggy's Cheetos). It works out for Clint, since Maria was supposed to be Clint's assassin. (That surprises Clint, since they'd hung out pretty often, and she hadn't tried to mark him. She tells him that he looked a bit too pathetic to mark right off the bat.) Well, sort of. Actually, it just makes the game more difficult, when Foggy doesn't help Matt escape Natasha.

The last people "alive" are Clint and Natasha. They've come to an agreement to not mark each other when they're walking to Dance History 10 together, but Natasha's just as slippery as Loki, or maybe more. She doesn't stay in her room all the time, but she's ridiculously quick, and she twists into the weirdest positions to get away from his marker. It's kind of terrifying, really.

Getting close enough to her to mark her is a battle in and of itself, actually, because she moves so fast. And because she's so tiny, she can be pretty hard to pinpoint.

In all honesty, Clint thinks that if all he wanted was to win then he would try to mark her from a distance. Marker arrow, or something ridiculous like that. He's had enough archery practice that he could probably make it work (not to mention, he's lived with the consequences of failure and he knows better than to miss).

He mentions it in the vaguest way possible to Phil first, who tells him that's breaking the rules. Not that breaking the rules is a bad thing, Phil continues, but that's not the point of the game. Which is true. Instead, Clint just waits. Not in a particularly creepy way, like camping out in front of her room or anything, but he does have Tony text him when Natasha's in the lounge (because there's no rule against having other people help you).

It sounds like something that could work, except that Natasha figures it out pretty fast. And by pretty fast, Clint tells Phil, he means inhumanly fast. Like, she is way too smart, and Clint is pretty close to giving up and letting her mark him, except that at this point, they've been dancing around each other for like, three days and it's too much time spent for him to give up.

He gets her when she comes back from dinner. He's studying in the lounge, waiting for Maria to come study with him before their history midterm - seriously though, who the fuck gives a midterm during week 3? Professor Erik fucking Lehnsherr, that's who - when Natasha comes back from dinner and stops by to say hello.

She's leaning in the doorway and absentmindedly pushes her sleeves up to her elbows, when Clint remembers that they're not supposed to be idly chit chatting, so much as he's supposed to be trying to mark her arm and win. He tries to reach for his marker while still looking subtle and relaxed, but she notices, because of course she would, and she takes off down the hallway.

If Clint expected to corner her in the hallway, he's wrong. Of course he's wrong. She reaches the end of the hall and goes down the staircase, instead of just stopping. As fast as she is on her feet, though, Clint's just as fast, and he's more used to obstacles than she is (he doesn't know this about her yet, but her ballet training did not include instructions for moving up and down stairs as fast as possible, so much as moving across a stage quickly). Still, she's quick enough to get away from him, at least until they read the emergency exit at the end of the staircase; if she continues on, she'll set off the alarm, so the only real way for her to run is to go through another door and make a mad dash for the elevator.

But it's too late for her to try. Clint's caught up with her, in the split second it took for her to consider her options, and she's basically cornered. He goes to mark her, not quite grabbing her arm to hold her still but sort of lightly grasping it, and she's immediately on the defensive, kicking back at his knee instinctively and throwing her weight away from him until he lets go of her, which is pretty much immediately.

Her face, when Clint looks down at her, is blank. She looks absent, empty. Maybe removed from herself.

"Nat?" He has to ask, to make sure she's okay. He doesn't want to have fucked anything up for her, or accidentally cause her to remember some past trauma. She shakes herself, just a little, and her eyes focus on him.

"Clint." She tries for a smile, but it only half works. "Hi. Sorry. Are you alright?"

He shrugs noncommittally. His knee hurts from where she kicked it really hard, but it's not fucked up or anything. Give it a day and it'll be fine, which he knows from experience. Might need ice, but that's alright. He's more concerned about her right now.

"Don't worry about me. You okay?" He looks at her, trying to see if she's okay or not. Except, of course, she won't look at him or answer the question. Actually, she changes the topic entirely.

"Looks like you've won."

That surprises him. "What?"

"You have a marker. I don't. You win." She's doing her best to look nonchalant, and ignore the fact that she had… Clint's not sure what to call it, a flashback or a panic attack or something.

"Natasha," he starts, but she gives him a look that says drop it. Instead, she holds out her arm and waves it in front of him.

"Tasha, seriously. Are you alright?" She glares at him a little more angrily, more death glare now, but then Clint blinks for a moment and when he opens his eyes again, she looks normal. Not angry, not scared or blank, but she has a neutral expression on her face, and her body doesn't scream "leave me alone" anymore.

"I'm fine. Are you going to win, or not?" She shoves her arm in his face again.

He swallows, then nods. He takes her arm in hand, looking at her for panic or some other kind of bad reaction (there's nothing), and draws a little arrow on her arm. He lets go, then holds out the marker to her before she can move away. "Your turn."

"What?"

"It's your turn. Do it." Her eyes narrow in confusion and… suspicion, Clint thinks, but she doesn't move. So he starts to talk again. "Come on, Tash. You'll save yourself from all of Tony's jokes, and Loki's snide comments."

She's still looking at him weirdly, but she draws a tiny hourglass on the inside of his wrist. He smiles at her, a giant grin and his eyes even crinkle around the edges, and she wants to smile back. Instead, she hands the marker back to him, and then walks back up the stairs to their floor. He follows behind her.

When they make it back to their lounge, Maria is waiting for Clint with a raised eyebrow. She watches as they both cross their names off the poster, handing the marker back and forth between each other, and then Natasha disappears silently down the hallway.

"Did you do something to her?" is the first thing she asks, once Natasha's gone and the door's slammed closed behind her.

Clint looks at her. How the hell did she know? Maria reads his face pretty easily, though, because she explains immediately. "I live with her, Barton. I can tell when she's putting up a front, and you guys were gone for like, ten minutes. That's more than enough time to kill someone off in Assassins."

"I kind of grabbed her arm. She didn't react well." Maria looks kind of skeptical, like she knows that there's more too it. But Clint doesn't feel like it's his place to tell her anything else. It's Natasha's life, and he doesn't want to make things uncomfortable for her; he tells Maria that, and she just nods.

"Makes sense," she tells him, but she still sounds doubtful. She seems to brush it off, though, and changes the topic. "Did you still want to study? I picked up an old midterm from the Test Bank, it might help."

"What? Yeah, sure. Let me get some coffee first."

Maria rolls her eyes, but she lets it slide.


	5. Chapter 5

It starts when Steve and Bucky come back from class late at night maybe two weeks later, while everyone else is sitting in the lounge, half of them studying (well, more like Phil and Natasha), while the others sort of watch a movie silently (it's a good movie, and none of them are really close enough friends to feel comfortable making commentary). They both look kind of battered, Steve more than Bucky, but they both seem about equally angry. Well, Clint thinks, tilting his head a little, maybe Bucky's more pissed. Although it might just be that black eye he's sporting, along with a giant and nasty-looking bruise on his flesh arm. Not to say that Steve isn't injured - he's got a towel pressed to his mouth that looks a more than a little bit red, and he's using his elbow to cradle the other arm. But that black may makes Bucky look downright dangerous.

Buck's trying to lecture Steve, or something, but he always looks like that because of how he puts his hand on Steve's shoulder. Even though Steve's taller than him, Bucky looks like the older friend. The Mr. Darcy to his Mr. Bingley, except perhaps less early-novel and more later-novel, when he's less of a douche (Clint, despite all the jokes Tony made about him being raised on shitty circus shows and public television crap like the Teletubbies, has gone to fucking school, where you read shit).

But whatever. Steve and Bucky are kind of angrily talking over one another in hissed whispers, and only a few words tumble out - it's hard for Clint to hear when they're so jumbled together, especially from too people, but he gets a few things out of it. "Regressive bastards" from Steve, who curses like a sailor even though he looks clean as fresh laundry. "Harebrained" from Bucky, which seems a bit old-fashioned but probably makes sense. Steve shoots back with something that sounds like "could have fucked up your arm." And also "HYDRA," which makes Clint uneasy.

"HYDRA," Clint knows now, is the name that another floor uses to talk about themselves. When Sam had told him initially, Clint hadn't really gotten what he was saying. But once he explained it to him the next day, he thought it was sort of comical. He would have laughed them off the first time he heard about them, except for the fact that they were literal neo-nazis. Like, literal Nazis who want to kill fucking everyone and complain when anyone who isn't a straight cis white man gets rights. Not only did they basically spend all their fucking time preaching about the wonders of white supremacy (didn't they have classes to go to, or something?), but they got away with so much bullshit it was ridiculous. And they'd been around for fucking ever, too. Clint's not sure how they manage it, to have all of them on the same fucking floor every year, but somehow they do it.

Looking around, he notices that everyone else looks concerned or angry, too. He's not sure if it's because of the mention of HYDRA, which Tony's alumni father had apparently told him horror stories about, or because of how fucked up Steve and Bucky look. Everyone's staring at the floor, shifting their eyes away from Steve and Bucky making their way down the hall, only to look back almost immediately. It's like a game of hot potato that doesn't stop until Pepper decides to go for it.

"Steve, Bucky, what happened?" There isn't any accusation in her voice, no motherly censure or anger. Just concern and curiosity, and Clint can see Steve relax after he tensed when she started talking.

He gestures to his shirt, black with pink, purple, and blue text - the same colors as the bisexual flag stuck onto the bulletin board that displayed different sexualities and their pride flags. It reads, "I'm not confused, I'm bisexual."

"HYDRA," he starts, before shaking his head angrily and just looking pissed off as fuck. But that's alright, because everyone immediately understands. Fucking HYDRA, who likes to paste signs about how "the gays" or "feminists" or basically everyone are going to be the death of civilization. Of course they would go after Steve, who could almost be their white cis man wet dream if it wasn't for his sexuality. "They didn't… they were yelling outside the LGBTQ center. It wasn't okay."

There's an explosion of sound around him, as everyone immediately jumps into action. No one is really close to one another, that's true, but when they're united against a common enemy... Pepper and Sam pull out their phones to talk to Nick Fury about disciplinary measures for HYDRA while everyone else starts either plotting against HYDRA (Tony, of course) or going up to Steve and Bucky to check on them.

It sort of surprises Clint to see Natasha give them both tight hugs, only a little bit. Steve, despite all his inherent goodness, is absolutely driven and works so hard, of course he and Natasha would get along. Bucky, on the other hand, has the same intensity and focus that Natasha does, although he's more lighthearted and science-minded. And she doesn't stay long, either, just gives them hugs and what looks like a comforting whisper from the way the two seem more at ease, before she slips off into the crowd.

Clint mostly watches from the side, not wanting to interrupt or overload their senses. That's what he would want, anyways, to be alone and not have people constantly coming up to him, talking to and at him. But he catches Steve's eye and tries to shoot him a reassuring smile, something that will say "I'm here for you if you need me." Steve smiles back, although with that towel still pressed against his mouth, it looks rather sinister - messaged delivered. Natasha backs away from them too, and goes up to Clint, leaning her head against his shoulder for a moment. She, like Tony, will want revenge, he knows. But she knows to wait, to gauge her options before making a move.

Tony, on the other hand, is planning like no tomorrow. He's not making much sense to Clint, since it's all engineering jargon, although he can understand when Tony weighs the pros and cons of having his father withdraw Stark Foundation donations to the school. Because while "it would fuck those HYDRA bastards over," it would also make things worse for the other students. Not to mention, Rhodey reminds him, that HYDRA has connections to the school's administration and directors, so they wouldn't be the ones hurt the most. Just the ones who need that money.

Thor tries to find a way, too. In his booming Shakespearian voice he offers to to talk to some people, he doesn't say who exactly, to figure out what to do. But before he or Tony can get very far in their discussion, Nick Fury sweeps into the lounge, his black trenchcoat flailing dramatically behind him.

Steve and Bucky are seated on one of the couches now, Pepper and Sam still around them, with Jane and Betty, one of Bruce's classmates, doing their best to inspect their wounds and figure out of they should go to the campus health center. Despite Steve's insistence of "no doctors," of course, but he doesn't seem super set on it; mostly, he seems almost content and comfortable, although he still looks pissed as all hell. His lip has stopped bleeding, Bucky's eye looks less gross (and it's not that bad - Clint knows from experience), and they're surrounded by friends who want to help them get back at HYDRA.

Except for Fury, it seems like, who just says, "What the fuck happened here?"

Immediately, everyone quiets down. Sam and Pepper look both worried and confident, even though Clint thinks that doesn't make any sense at all, but that's just how it looks. Fury fixes his eyes on Steve and Bucky, though, surrounded by everyone else, without even looking at his RAs. But his voice is, at least to Clint, surprisingly gentle. "Did you two want to explain this here, or in my office?"

Steve and Bucky share a moment, a look, and then seem to straighten up in unison.

"Here, sir," Steve says.

"Cut the bullshit, Rogers," Fury says, but without an ounce of anger in his voice. "Just explain."


End file.
